Mike Rink

CATEGORIES

We enjoyed a tremendous week in San Jose, rife with networking, relationship building, and plenty of opportunities for learning. Not only did Atlassian put on an amazing Summit, but we also took part in the first-ever Add-on Discovery Day, an event that reminded us just how great the ecosystem truly is.

Pre-Summit Dinner

We kicked off festivities on Sunday with a special pre-Summit dinner. Around 70 people joined us at Olla Cocina for authentic Mexican food and drink, renewing acquaintances and making friends throughout the evening. The atmosphere was jovial, helped by the buckets of cold Mexican beer and the delicious margaritas.

Well fed, and perhaps slightly too well hydrated, we left the event prepared for a stellar week. But, before the craziness of Summit descended, we first took part in an brand-new event in the ecosystem.

Add-on Discovery Day

After Summit Europe earlier this year, a few of the vendors in the Marketplace agreed to discuss hosting an independent app-centric event. Over the past few months this core group has worked together to organize an event in San Jose separate from Summit designed to teach the ecosystem how apps can extend Atlassian products. This hard work culminated in Add-on Discovery Day, a joint effort between nine add-on vendors showcasing some of the best the marketplace has to offer.

We welcomed 250 interested attendees with a high-energy Pecha Kucha-style keynote, highlighted by our CEO David Bonilla sharing with the crowd what makes Comalatech so special. Next we invited attendees to watch break-out sessions spotlighting our products and solutions. Business Development Manager Simon Gatto hosted sessions teaching users how to extend Confluence with approvals and reviews, and a special session on boosting Jira Service Desk productivity with our app Comala Canvas for Jira. Product Manager Gorka Puente attracted the largest crowd with his session on ranking, prioritizing, and grooming Jira backlogs, facilitated by Comala Agile Ranking. Last but not least, Product Evangelist Mike Rink laid out some simple use cases to help Solutions Partners sell Confluence to enterprise customers.

Response from all involved was extremely positive, and it was gratifying for all the organizers’ work to have paid off. We would like to give special thanks to //Seibert/Media, K15t, and Tempo for going above and beyond to make the event a success; we’re lucky to share the ecosystem with tremendous companies like yourselves.

Summit

With Add-on Discovery Day in the rearview mirror, it was time for the main event – Summit. From the opening reception Tuesday evening to the minutes before ShipIt Live! on Thursday afternoon, nearly every moment of Summit was packed with interactions with attendees, partners, and Atlassians.

This entire blog could be filled with highlights from the event, from our buzzworthy Comala Crunch cereal boxes to the positive reception of our newly released Comala Workflows UI, but two things in particular stand out:

To all of those who stopped by to chat, we say thank you. And to Colleen and Hope of the Atlassian drone police events team, we say sorry.

Summit 2018 and Beyond

Another Summit has come and gone, and so our attention turns to Barcelona yet again for Summit 2018. We can’t reveal any specific plans, but you can bet it’s probably going to include friends, football, and fun. But fewer drone flights. Probably.